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Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

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Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#221
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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“ 2 years is 66% of my toddler’s life. A toddler that doesnt know what a peer’s smile is since she’s masked all day.” Check your math ;) And, seek help. Life is beautiful, but depression and deep-seeded pain (dont ask me how I know. I wont share) makes us forget this. The lockdowns have created a mental health crisis and its important we seek each other and help

it's beautiful for some people, typically living in highly privileged contexts... most people in the world never get anything worth from being born.

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Preaching "floods don't exist!" to the exhausted people who are watching the river subside after slinging sandbags for three days. Alternatively, many who were caught in the flood washed up safely on the shores, returned back to town to see people ripping down their houses to build barriers against the flood that they thought was the end of the world.

The ICUs are full. Millions have died. Millions more have long covid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

No post body was provided.

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#223
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That you should be glad that your vaccination made you an order of magnitude less likely to have a severe case? For Omicron? And even if. It is great if it is a result of my personal decision to get vaccinated. It is awful to force others to get vaccinated, especially if most claims regarding efficacy get weakened a lot over time and people ignore that. Vaccine mandates and mandatory passports everywhere have faile…

Vaccine mandates … everywhere have failed Smallpox and measles mandates worked. And which western/first world nations actually had COVID mandates? The US sure didn’t.

> Smallpox and measles mandates worked.

(Vaccine mandates) and (mandatory passports everywhere) have failed

> And which western/first world nations actually had COVID mandates? The US sure didn’t.

Germany, Austria, Australia, France, Italy, ...

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#224
post #120

At this point, you’re either vaccinated, have been sick or are dead, so all good. With Omicron beating out Delta and not causing as many hospitalizations - sure, why not.

It's not causing as many hospitalizations per infection . But it's causing far more overall hospitalizations because the increase in infections vastly outweighs the decrease in seriousness. The problem is and always has been "what if the health care system is overwhelmed".

What if the health care isn't overwhelmed? Which it isn't.

With that reasoning you can never remove the restrictions, because you never know if that would overwhelm the health care system.

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#225
post #93

To anyone confused about these reopenings, particularly in the US, it's actually pretty easy to understand: 1. Governments have decided that by now if you're not vaccinated it's by choice (which it is, barring actual medical conditions) it's by choice and the governments (as well as many people) have stopped caring; 2. The CDC's recent self-isolation has shown that given (1), the government cares more about keeping t…

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Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“US hospitalizations are at an all time high,” How do you know that? My question, really, is how do you know what you know and are not being misled? (A la WMD to use an easy, universally understood, example?) “2000 people are still dying every day,” No, they’re not. According to the CDC (why do I trust them?) its currently 500/day [1]. It hasn't been > 2000 since September in the midst of the Delta spike. But even be…

> According to the CDC (why do I trust them?) How would you (or really anyone I suppose) evaluate whether to trust the CDC or some other equivalent? Also, thanks for those numbers. I don't know why that breakdown isn't more widely pushed.

Inquiry. Using all our mental gifts to test an assertion’s truth.

- Do the numbers add up? Fake numbers often don't.

- Does the narrative have a logical flow? Lies often break apart (careful! Consipracy theories are often very consistent)

- Aethetics. Lies are often repulsive to our soul (Nazism, socialism -> see nihlism). Careful again; sometimes its “the ugly truth”

- Dialectic (for lack of a better word. Not Hegel’s type. Whatever that was). Engage and hear out someone who disagrees

- Meditate. Close your eyes and release. And overlooked Truth might pop up.

- Look around you. Does the narrative fit your observed reality? Careful! There’s observational bias.

Keep tabs of who has the courage to defend positions they disagree with.

Keep tabs of those who reveal themselves sycophants

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#228
post #85

Many (I suspect most but I only follow a few) epidemiologists are saying there's no stopping Omicron. It's more contagious than measles - if you're in a room with somebody who has it, you're exposed barring a properly fitted N95 mask. All of us will be exposed by mid February. It's also many times less pathogenic than Delta, and it's a gift that nothing at present can outcompete it. I believe it's the version that wi…

> Many (I suspect most)epidemiologists are saying there's no stopping Omicron. Which doesn’t mean we all have to get it at the same time. I’m so tired of these false dichotomies. There’s a lot of middle ground between full lockdown and completely giving up so everyone gets it at the same time. We’re already running out of ICU beds and emergency treatments like monoclonal antibodies where I’m at. Yet the prevailing lo…

Ireland is on the tail of their omicron peak ( based on cases, hospitalizations, and icu beds). Ireland has a very high vax percentage, well over 90+ in the covered groups, with high penetration of boosters as well.

The case peak from omicron was 7x the delta numbers, hospitalization numbers were 2x, and icu was actually down.

I feel like omicron has burned through here, and there’s not a huge risk to opening at this point.

At the point when we have another infectious strain going around, they’re going to have to reevaluate, but that’s later.

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#229
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over 90% of the people in the hospitals are unvaccinated.

A statistic like this is meaningless unless qualified and supported with a link to a reliable source. All hospitals in the US, UK, European countries, South America, world?

It's also meaningless unless compared to the population.

"90% of the people in this hospital for COVID today are unvaccinated" is a very different statement when, for hypothetical examples,

- 90% of the people in the local area area are unvaccinated: Hospital population is same as general population.

- 10% of the people in the local area area are unvaccinated: Hospital population is mostly drawn from the unvaccinated.

And points in-between, and the other way (what if - for sake of example only - 95% of local people are unvaccinated?).

And then there are further confounding effects - what if unvaccinated people are younger and than average, as vaccines are given preferentially to older people who are more likely to require a hospital visit in normal times.

Re: Ireland drops most Covid restrictions in wake of 'Omicron storm'

#230
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US hospitalizations are at an all time high Well, about that. A few governors have admitted what has been known by “conspiracy theorists” for the past two years: that included in the count of Covid hospitalizations are people who come to the hospital for something else entirely and happen to test positive [0]: > Officials from New York City-based NYU Langone Health told The New York Times in a Jan. 4 report that ab…

I believe leaders also have an incentive to muddy waters because wage shortages are causing hospital capacity to fall, but it is easier for them to claim COVID. It would be nice if we were able to see the change in how many nurse/technician hours were available over the past few years.

It also didn't help that after two years of being called "essential workers" and constantly exposed, hospital staff were told to get the vaccine or take a hike. The principle of the matter pissed off a lot of nurses my wife knows, whether they were vaccinated, naturally immune or not at all.

To top it off, healthy unvaccinated nurses can't work, but capacity is so low some hospitals are asking covid positive nurses to come back to work before they fully recover or had the full quarantine period.

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